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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29096391">Tell Me What to Say</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/thenopetrain/pseuds/thenopetrain'>thenopetrain</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Blacklist (US TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Agnesgate, Also I pulled Dr. Krilov's name outta my ass, Angst, F/M, Gen, Hurt Red, I almost didn't tag this, I basically word-vomited this thing, I spent too many years being a dedicated fan to this dumb show, Lizzington - Freeform, Psychological Distress, There are probably typos, be warned, fix-it kind of I guess, haha crying, i'm coping, panic attack - not in full detail though, sorry it's blah, this is me coping, trauma trigger warning</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-01-31</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-01-31</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-13 12:54:06</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Not Rated</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>4,450</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29096391</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/thenopetrain/pseuds/thenopetrain</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Season 8 AU.<br/>"Tell me what to say, Lizzy." He breathes in the smell of her, this broken plea warm against her skin. "Please, tell me what to say."</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Elizabeth Keen &amp; Raymond Reddington, Elizabeth Keen/Raymond Reddington</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>70</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Tell Me What to Say</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“Do you know what a Remora is, Lizzy?” </p><p>Pissed. Impatient. Liz bites the inside of her cheek and makes herself count to ten. The wipers on the car she’s stolen squeak by twice, the rain letting up from the down-pour earlier. </p><p>“What do you want, Reddington?” </p><p>“Remoras are those little fish you see attached to sharks or bigger mammals, they feed off the hosts they hitch a ride with and sometimes even clean up the mess of their chosen predator.” She hears him. Sort of, can’t figure out why she feels like panicking; swallows down a nauseous feeling in the back of her throat. “Lizzy?” </p><p>“<em> What? </em>” A shiver races through her from head to toe and she blinks the rain out of her eyes. Looks around, doesn’t remember getting out of the car. </p><p>“Are you alright?” This is stupid. Why is he talking about fish? Why does he have to talk in circles around the situation? She takes a deep breath, in and out, and then once more. </p><p>“I’m fine.” She hangs up and steadies herself against the car; shutting her eyes as she listens to the rain. <em> What the hell? </em> Stress, rage, desperation...all of these things could send her into a panic attack. <em> I’d been fine before. This isn’t even that bad. </em> The nightmares she’d endured when she was discovering who and what Tom was were worse. There was no staircase to escape to this time, no evidence to find, only a man to destroy. And that man had triggered some kind of stress response. All of her schooling, the experience in her previous profession, come back to her and she gets back in the car; shutting out the rain and the noise of the world. Going through what her senses could tell her, gripping the steering wheel, smelling the rain, feeling the could, hearing the windshield wipers, focusing on the heat coming out of the vents….</p><p>
  <em> I’m fine. I’m fine. I’m fine. I’m in control. I have the upper hand.  </em>
</p><p>And when next she opens her eyes, she’s got a plan.</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>There’s a noise, a warning, as a shadow falls across her from behind. She whirls on the intruder, gun pointed center mass. </p><p>“Reddington.”</p><p>“Agent Keen.”</p><p>Terse, painfully detached. Red winces as he beholds the crate behind her. Priceless art, expensive vases and statuettes, a few forgeries mixed in with the authentic pieces. She still has some of the stuffing on her gloves that lined the inside of the crate. </p><p>“Find what you were looking for?” He raises his eyebrows and she lifts a shoulder in response. </p><p>“Wouldn’t you like to know.” They stand there, guns pointed at each other, a tension filling up the space between them that couldn’t possibly last much longer. </p><p>“The hard drive isn’t here.” Not that she needed to be told, because she was starting to suspect he’d led her on this little goosechase, but the confirmation irks her nonetheless.</p><p>“So, what? You led me into a trap? Is Ressler waiting for me outside?” This pulls a laugh from him, and where once she would have relished the sound, appreciating the fact that she could make him smile, that they could have a moment of camaraderie after everything they’ve gone through, she now feels only a chilling indifference to his amusement. </p><p>“Heavens no.” He lowers his weapon just a little, tilts his head to show off the curve of his smile. “This is a private meeting.”</p><p>No Dembe? No guards? No contingency plan? She looks around, checks what windows she can see, strains to hear anything outside the ordinary within the warehouse. Even if he was telling the truth, it didn’t matter. He moves just a little to her left, closer to the other end of the crate, and she reinforces her aim on his person.</p><p>“What do you want?”</p><p>“You’re not going to shoot me, Lizzy.” </p><p>“You don’t know that.” She can’t keep the devastation from leaking into her voice, nor from creeping onto her face. <em> I loved you. </em> “You killed her. I asked you <em> not to and you KILLED HER.” </em> She’s aware that the gun in her hands is shaking, that tears are clouding her vision. “I should have walked away from you for good after you killed Sam, after I found out about Tom, after Kaplan, and Rostov, and Dom, and <em> God </em> you’ve taken <em> everything from me. </em>” </p><p>“I didn’t want to.” Quiet, honest. She hates him for it. This admission doesn’t do her any good. It can’t fix this. Nothing can fix this. She takes a step forward, raises her gun, calms her breathing, and aims for the space between his eyebrows, just under the brim of his hat. He spreads his arms the way he did when Tom was holding her at gunpoint. An act of total surrender. </p><p>“You’re not supposed to be a Remora.” She falters, frowns at him. </p><p>“What?” </p><p>“That’s what I was going to say the other day on the phone, Lizzy.” Remora. Her heart pounds in her ears. Her mouth goes dry. “You’re a <em> shark </em>.” When she manages to look at him directly, the urge to flee unbearable, she sees only concern in his eyes.</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>Dizziness is not something she expected to start associating with seeing or thinking of Red and his weird little sea-creature conversation, but it happens. It happens when she flees the warehouse. It happens when she tries to make sense of the anxiety curdled in her stomach and intestines. It happens again when she’s in the shower that night and she has to force herself to breathe in the steam just to calm down. </p><p>It doesn’t make any sense to her. His voice, the emotion in it….she picks and picks and <em> picks </em> at it until there is nothing left but all the secrets he protects himself with, kills people over, protects her from, controls her with. Sitting on the bed in her towel, she lies back and curls into a ball, eyes clenched shut as she wills away the grief she’d shoved deep down inside her since watching him kill her mother. All she gets for her efforts is a deep ache in her chest. </p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>She’s tracked him to a weapons cache in Canada, a meeting with the CIA of all groups, and almost gets herself killed. </p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>It’s been done before, this introspection and consideration of color. Especially this specific color. A color of life, of death, of rage, passion, love, devotion.... </p><p>It’s the color of blood, the very thing between them now. On the floor, in the carpets, between her fingers, under his nails. </p><p>Blood spilled.</p><p>Blood given. </p><p>Blood sacrificed.</p><p>Blood cleaned away.</p><p>Blood hidden.</p><p>Blood in the secrets they carry like poison in their veins. </p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>An hour ago, with the sound of yelling and gunfire serving as the backdrop of his voice in her ear telling her to stay down, his body covering hers as she squirmed and writhed, he’d saved her life.</p><p>Again. </p><p>“Stop, Lizzy.”</p><p>“Get up, Lizzy.”</p><p>“Elizabeth, <em> move. </em>”</p><p>Now, holed up in one of his countless safehouses, they’ve entered into a perilous cease-fire and descended into the dangers of silence. He sits sweaty and silent in the corner under the window; the light of a billboard across from their building shifts a portion of his face and body. Dramatic blushes, soft blues, a bleary bone-white. Across the room, in the corner diagonal from him, ensconced in the shadows where the splashes of color can’t get her, can’t reveal her to the man she hates, whose eyes probe all the chinks in her armor, whose betrayal cuts the deepest, Liz finds herself watching for the opportune time to strike. </p><p>A twitch from him, a sigh, maybe his eyes will slip closed for a second too long...she needs <em> something </em>; any weakness to capitalize on is a good weakness. Instead, after what was certainly the longest hour of her life in recent memory, she gets, </p><p>“Thought you couldn’t stand the sight of me.”</p><p>She thought she would be terrified of his scrutiny, of being looked at. But her eyes don’t flee his own as he levels his gaze at her; a look that’s blunt, disappointed...weary? Her stomach flips, and Liz shoves all of the possible reasons for such an emotion, refusing to let it out beyond her apathetic expression. </p><p>“Just checking to see if you were still breathing,” She sighs, glances down at the gun in her lap, carefully conveying her intent when she looks back up at him. “You know, so I can be done with whatever mysterious and awful thing ties us together.” <em> So I don’t have to care anymore. So I don’t have to grieve my lack of control over my own life. So I’m no longer a slave to these secrets. </em>“Because when we get outta this mess, I’m not gonna stop coming for you.” </p><p>It shuts him up. The silence yawns once more between them; awkward, fumbling, and <em> screaming </em>. He’s still staring at her, and a few minutes into this newest bout of their standoff, he slumps a little further into the wall, leaning his head back; and she silently curses him for looking so cavalier. Shot, bleeding, a precarious situation, and he has the audacity to gaze at her like he’s figured out his next course of action.  </p><p>“Remora.” The word pulls at something deep within her, an invisible string; a memory long buried. She draws in a quick breath, tries to ignore the sudden knot in her stomach and the pounding in her chest. </p><p>“Again with this?” He doesn’t answer her, only nods, tilts his head and continues to watch her with something she identifies as regret.</p><p>“Shark.” It steals her breath, agitation starts to well up within her. There’s anxiety pouring into her veins with every erratic beat of her heart. The next three...she barely hears them, her vision tunneling.</p><p>“Sam. Cape May. Seven.” She’s drawn her knees up, the gun in her lap pressing uncomfortably into her stomach. Small, insignificant, out of control...the emotions assault her with cruel ease. Within her, flames lick the edges of her memory, allowing smoke to pool out of the walls, for eerie flickers of light to confuse the solid with the immaterial. Intermittent is the image of him bleeding out, of dialing *77, of her autodial for Nick’s Pizza...</p><p>“White Bear.” A sound comes from her throat; feeble, strained. The fire is everywhere. Liz shuts her eyes, buries her face in her knees and hugs them so tightly that her chest starts to shake. This is worse. She’s trapped. A gun is in her hand, a body on the floor. There’s a sharp echo in her ears, her mother’s shocked face, younger and tear-stained; it hovers before her.</p><p>“Red….Stop.” <em> Make it stop. Please, make it stop. </em> Memories begin pouring in; doors she didn’t know existed start to open. Ghosts of intuition become memories, tangible, present, overwhelming. Her grandfather. Mr. Kaplan. Her mother. A man writhing on a table, his back bubbled and blistered, a doctor leaning over him, syringe in hand. Cut to Sam smiling, then laughing, then crying, then giving her away, then coughing. A fedora in the shadows, a face unseen, turned away. Her voice calling after him. </p><p>“<em> Glasnost </em>.” The closet, the smoke coming in under the door. Voices, familiar and strange. Her mother, her father. A ring with a red jewel. The rabbit she holds in her hands feels coarser than she thought she remembered. Everything Red told her was true. She watches herself shoot her father. She watches her mother freeze as the flames start to creep in on them, up the walls. She yells. She cries. She screams. </p><p>A noise behind her, coughing and yelling. There’s a man, younger, his green eyes look at her softly, trying his best to hide his panic. He shakes her mother out of her stupor as the ceiling falls down around them. She’s unhurt, her body covered by the man’s. She hits him, calls out to him, his name muffled in her ears, now. </p><p>Something has him pinned, but he lifts himself enough for her to wriggle out, and suddenly she can’t see her mother, she can only hear her calling for her. Lizzy hits the man, yells at him, demands he get up. The fire consumes his back from the ceiling that fell on them. She tries to lift it, innocent of harm until the fire bites into the skin of her palm. It’s that shriek that rouses him. </p><p> Get up. <em> Get. Up. </em> He does. He scoops her up and runs, collapses somewhere in the snow outside. Her mother finally finds her, covered in soot, crying. </p><p>Liz is up, moving, can’t find a suitable place to go, can’t open the door to this stupid safehouse, can’t ignore the memories flooding her senses, taking over her faculties. She rages against the door she watched Reddington lock when they got there; a keypad, a thumbprint. </p><p>“Lizzy…” His voice is garbled around her own cries. A hand is on her shoulder, her fist collides with his jaw, she hears him stumble away. Suddenly there is the memory of ecstasy and relief, of a shipping container, of roaming hands, of uncertainty and safety and the calm it brings her to be near him, to wake up beside him, to smell him, to feel him. </p><p><em> Polaris. </em>There’s the agreement to wipe away this memory. The dream of holding hands in the park, how he’d looked at her. Dr. Krilov and Tom and Red’s stricken face when she grabbed his hand before her betrayal. Tried to say I love you. Tried to comfort him. Tried to tell him... </p><p>“Oh my God, <em> Agnes </em>.” She gets it out as she starts to cry, falling back against the door and sliding down until she’s sitting, staring at Red who braces himself on one elbow, the other hand massaging his jaw. She doesn’t know if it’s physical, mental, emotional, or both, but there is anguish on his face as he looks at her; his lip swollen and a little bloodied.</p><p>“I thought giving birth to her would trigger your memories, I never intended to-” His breath hitches and he looks away from her for a moment, his chin wobbling, jaw clenching as he holds himself together. “I’m so sorry, Lizzy.” The apology gushes from him, a leaky faucet as he says it over and over in different ways. Should-haves, would-haves, could-haves….they spill out of him. </p><p>“After your coma...we, um- I couldn’t undo it without undoing all of it.” </p><p>All of it. <em> All of it. </em> They sit for what feels like hours as Liz hugs herself, trying to press into the door as if she’ll become one with the wood; something sturdy to hold her up, to ground her. The past pours into her present with alarming speed, some of it still murky, other pieces, the more emotional ones, the ones tied to anger and love and fear, they remain the starkest. She’s exhausted by the time Red picks himself up and slowly comes to crouch down in front of her.</p><p>“I need to check your pulse, Lizzy.” When she pulls her eyes away from the darkness, whatever expression she’s wearing makes him flinch, and she tenses when his hand moves slowly towards her wrist. She knows that he’s being intentional when he turns her hand over in his own, his fingers drifting over the scar on her palm. She swallows past her parched throat and her eyes drift to the slope of his neck where his jacket, vest, and shirt meet like armor to hide his own scars. </p><p>“You saved me…” Small, quiet, the admission sounds like two rocks rubbed together, and it pulls her attention away from his shoulders to his face. He won’t look at her, he’s frowning at her scar. She sighs softly, closes her eyes, and leans her head back against the door. She can remember now, all those mottled pieces from when Braxton was poking around in her head are clear, and that’s not how it went down.</p><p>“We saved each other.” <em> We keep saving each other. </em> The night of the fire. Berlin. The King’s. Solomon. Kirk, etc, etc. <em> And then, again, tonight. </em> At the thought of him tackling her to the ground, she seeks out his injury in the dark and finds the bloodied fabric peeking out around the edge of his vest near his collarbone, sees the way he holds himself a little crookedly. </p><p>“Red,” His hand moves from hers, his eyes still carefully avoiding her own. </p><p>“Can you feel your extremities?” Her emotions tilt, irritation starting to creep back into her chest, frustration setting somewhere between her ears that accentuates the low throb of an impending headache. She might have had symptoms of shock before, but she’s calmer, now, and tired. So very tired.</p><p>“Yes,” On auto-pilot, she flexes her hands, clenches them into fists, moves her feet a little on command. “Red?” She never thought to ask before, didn’t care. A large part of her still doesn’t. <em> I need space. </em> </p><p>“I’ll be okay, Lizzy.” </p><p> </p><p>Lizzy.</p><p>Red. </p><p>Back and forth. </p><p> </p><p>His green eyes finally drift to meet her own, and the space between them is filled up with their breathing, their pain and heartache. She doesn’t want to look away, doesn’t want to forget the moments of the past that allowed her to throw herself into his arms; to hold on to him when she felt like she was drowning. </p><p>“I don’t want to kill you.” Tears pool in her eyes, and his features crumple a little. It’s enough to make her look away, placing a small, invisible wall between them again. She keeps seeing him shoot her mother. “But I can’t forgive you.” </p><p><em> I don’t know how. </em>She keeps feeling the grief rip through her, how painful it had been to have the last of her confidence in him shatter. They shared so much, their lives so entwined; pain, burns, scars, a daughter… So much of his involvement and his desire to be close to Agnes makes sense to her now, and she feels sick that she’s kept him from his daughter; how cruel she’d been. She has to let that go, she didn’t know, she can’t keep vacillating between being numb, sad, and angry all the time. </p><p>“I...your mother is-” He sucks in a breath and leans away from her, a displeased frown on his face. He lifts his good arm a little and offers her a helpless gesture. The ire in her stare must have returned because he grounds the next word out hesitantly, and she thinks that maybe he expects to get punched again. “Recovering.” </p><p>“Recovering.” The word drops like a stone from her mouth. She doesn’t believe him. Doesn’t dare to hope that he’s telling the truth. </p><p>“Quite nicely, in fact.” She swears to God that she’s gonna kill him, but the pissed feeling vanishes, and Liz finds herself laughing. The sound startles Red, because she can see the way he flinches. </p><p>“I’m sorry, it’s just-” The laughter won’t go away. It’s maniacal, the way it presses into the back of her throat, the way she feels the tears in her eyes as she struggles to breathe. Either she’s having a psychotic break, which is definitely possible after being brainwashed and having her memory tampered with so many times, or she’s finally coming to terms with Red taking her mother’s body away with him, of him being patient with her, of him suffering whatever punishment she wanted to dole out. “This is so messed up.” </p><p>The humor she recognizes in this ridiculous situation, in this ridiculous <em> life </em> she leads, starts to taper off. By the time she’s breathing normally again, Red has moved to lean against the wall beside the door next to her. It’s when he coughs a few times that she rolls her head to the side to look at him; sees the pain on his face, the deep and desperate breath he takes. She remembers him coughing up blood, of passing out, of trying to blow him up in the hospital. </p><p>She’s not surprised that he stops whatever she’s going to say by closing his eyes and searches for her hand with his own. </p><p>“I have no plan, Lizzy.” She grips his hand tightly, a little shocked. Raymond Reddington doesn’t have a plan? </p><p>“That’s hard to believe.” </p><p>“Yes, well,” He chuckles, clears his throat a moment later, and his brows furrow; eyes still closed, looking like he hasn’t slept in ages. <em> Maybe he hasn’t. </em> “I have a psychologist on standby in case this day came sooner than expected. You’ll need help I can’t give you. I can protect you from the people who will want the other information in your head, I can be there for you if you want me to be or I can be in the shadows. But I can’t leave you just yet, Lizzy.” </p><p><em> We always find our way back to each other. </em> </p><p>She nods after a moment of resignation, shifts so that she’s looking at the billboard light coming in through the cracks in the blinds across the room. So there <em> is </em> more locked away inside her brain. It’s the <em> how much more </em> part that stirs up fear in her chest. </p><p>“I can’t go back to being who I was before you did what you did, Red.” Honesty would have been the best policy after she’d witnessed him supposedly murdering her mother in cold blood. <em> I drew the line in the sand. </em> And he’d leapt across that line. “And you’re gonna have to start being absolutely honest with me.” His hand squeezes hers again, and she looks over at him; wondering if this was what he meant whenever he intimated that their fates were inevitable. “You can’t keep eating my sins, not anymore. They’re my own, now.” She’s basically a terrorist in the eyes of the law. No matter what usefulness the task force has in Red’s plans, in her future, she can’t be a functioning part of them. Somewhere in the past, she’d chosen a side on a container ship, she just had to remember what she’d chosen; <em> who </em> she had chosen. </p><p>“And Agnes?” His eyes open and he turns his head to meet her eyes; sorrow clouding his expression, fear making them glitter in the wan light. She doesn’t have an immediate answer. Dom would have been a good surrogate, would have been someone she’d have loved to know if she hadn’t been so hellbent on getting answers…</p><p>“My mother can keep her safe.” He doesn’t like that idea, she can tell in the way his body goes a little rigid. But she grips his fingers; doesn’t mind that they haven’t let go of one another. “Who better?” There is no one else besides Dembe that she would trust. And they can’t lose Dembe if this war is going to be endured. Sure, the task force could and would protect Agnes, but if her memories are anything to go by, they aren’t capable of giving her daughter the kind of protection she needs.</p><p>Liz sits there with this realization, lets it click into place, and finally recognizes the gripping and murderous protectiveness Red must have experienced for the last three decades. There isn’t enough protection in all the world to make her feel secure. But something feels like relief when she thinks about trusting Katarina. </p><p>“Do you trust her? Truly?” He is seeking this confirmation in her face, and she thinks of all the times she was toyed with, manipulated, used, but how her mother listened to her, saved Red when she asked. </p><p>“If I ask her to protect Agnes, she will.” It’s not an answer, but it also cuts through his indignation, the implied <em> unlike you </em> like a bullet to the gut. He swallows and nods, the motion pulling at the bullet wound just above his collarbone. Liz makes a frustrated sound and rises to her feet, takes an unsteady few steps to where she knows there’s a bathroom and the likelihood of an emergency kit. </p><p>When she returns, Red is staring off into space, his breathing labored, but quiet. She tends to him, her brain at war with disgust and tenderness as she meticulously undoes the buttons of his vest and shirt, the gentleness with which she cleans his latest injury feeling more like a test than an act of love. It’s not terrible. He’s lucky. She mentions that he might need to get it checked just in case it nicked a bone. Bandaged, clean, shirt and vest left undone a little, she starts to move her hand beneath the collar of his shirt, to skirt her fingers along the scars she knows cover his back. </p><p>Before she can get too far, he just catches her hands in his own, and pulls them up to his lips. There’s a silent apology in the way he brushes a kiss to her knuckles; fealty, a scarce desire for redemption, gratitude. It’s going to take a long time to make things better between them. But she thinks she wants to try, and, God, that’s more than expected from herself.</p><p>Liz shifts to his good side, lifting his left arm so that it’s wrapped around her shoulders, her ear pressed to the side of his chest so she can hear his heartbeat, hear him breathe, even. She knows it pains him, knows he can’t help himself, when he presses his nose into her hair and kisses her head.</p><p>"Tell me what to say, Lizzy." He breathes in the smell of her, this broken plea warm against her skin. "Please, tell me what to say." Her eyes slip closed and she focuses on the warmth of him beneath her; can’t think of what will become of her, of <em> them </em> , when it’s finally safe to leave this little apartment. <em> Tell me to ‘Go’, Lizzy. </em> He doesn’t want to leave her, she realizes, doesn’t want to hear her dismiss him, doesn’t want her to banish him. </p><p>“You love me.” No question, just a pure fact. In the many ways he has cared for her, love has always been the unstoppable force behind his actions and decisions when it comes to her. She opens her eyes and feels him sigh in her hair, thinks she feels a wetness there against her scalp, tries to picture him crying. Can’t. </p><p>“With every <em>fiber</em> of my being.” Liz sighs and holds him tighter, feels herself relax into him a little more as he pulls her against him by the shoulders. Something sturdy clicks into place within her, the first building block, the cornerstone of renewal.</p><p> </p><p>She believes him. </p>
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